The third way
Depending on which reasonably successful country you would like to emulate, the UK needs between 30 and 50% more doctors than it has. Ambulances are queuing for hours outside hospitals because their patients cannot be seen or find a bed and waiting lists have soared for a host of very serious illnesses.
Still the argument goes on in the Conservative party about why it doesn’t just slash and burn state spending again and use the “savings” to cut taxes. This current government has a significant minority or even a majority who would prefer to cut taxes and see children go to bed hungry.
Yes, I know, in the long term they would all be fed better because of higher growth or so the theory goes. But the theory has been tested for a long time now and there are a lot of hungry kids around.
With an ageing population and pathetic growth for years this is going to get much worse, but the Tory party will now never give up on pretending it can cut taxes.
It has put them up time and again because it has had to, much to the shock and pain of its members but it will always claim to be the party of low taxation.
But if you want an NHS that works it cost £x, end of. If you are not willing to spend that money and raise the taxes necessary then the NHS will fail.
So will education, the justice system, the Armed Forces and much else. It is happening before our eyes.
Cheese paring is not an economic policy, years of tax cuts the UK could not afford have led to this.
Trying to run a European style social and health system with American style taxes means eventually one has to give.
There is no third way.
Economics, trade and Brexit, not necessarily in that order but the dog always comes first.
"...in the long term they would all be fed better because of higher growth or so the theory goes..."
More of a specious argument than an actual theory, surely. A bit like the old "trickle down theory".
An underfed child in the present cannot wait for an unspecified "long term". The damage is done in the present, for the long term.
Also continual cutting of funding for education, healthcare and policing is all ultimately self-defeating. Is there any real world example of a society in which increasing disparity of wealth, education, employment opportunity and health didn't lead to more crime, more social unrest and higher public order expense?